Well now. Wasn’t yesterday’s football a nice little bonus on a weekend in which we were comprehensive in our job, whilst others were anything but, eh?
I watched the first part of the Villa v Brentford game before heading off for some dinner, so I didn’t see Villa stumble in the second half, then when I got back I saw that the Scum were rolling over and having their bellies tickled by Man City. I commented on social media that there’s no way in hell they’ll be as bad as that when we play them in a couple of weeks’ time, but I guess City must have felt that in the game as a whole. Because imagine my surprise to see that, once again, we’ve gained ground on those closest to us with both City and Villa dropping points.
Six points clear. Feels good, eh?
And yet, this morning as I was doing my run, I couldn’t help but think about how glorious this could all be if we hadn’t wobbled a little bit in previous weeks. I know, I know, that kind of thinking can send a football fan mad. But I just replayed that 0-0 with Forest and the 3-2 with United in my head again and again and started to dream about the parallel universe in which we’re now 11 points clear with 14 games to go.
But we’re in this one, we’re still six points clear, we’ve restored a bit more distance compared to last weekend, and when next weekend comes around, we play before City to make it nine points. They have a hard game away at Liverpool, so the hope for next weekend will be that the Scousers can at least do something, because I would Kevin Keegan-esque “love it” if we can get a little further ahead again.
We’re going to do it with Merino, though, who the club confirmed yesterday had [gone through surgery](https://www.arsenal.com/news/medical-update-mikel-merino) and will be out for ‘an extended period’. They said that he’d be back to training before the end of the season, but that statement says to me he’d probably be done until at least April, by which time even getting back to full fitness means he’ll most likely only be a bit-part player for us between now and May.
That’s a real blow. He is a scorer of big goals. He scored to equalise against United last weekend. He scored to equalise against Newcastle at St James’ Park, plus the equaliser at Stamford Bridge. He is an aerial presence. He is a guy who is a dual winner, and I think in the fullness of time we’ll look back at him as one of those real unsung players of the Arsenal squad under Arteta. He kind of reminds me a bit of Ray Parlour under Wenger. Ray was never what you’d call a regular; if you think about that XI that was the _Invincibles_ starting XI, we can all reel off the names. But Ray isn’t one of those names. And yet he was a guy who always played plenty of football (he made 37 appearances in 2003/4), always got goals (think the FA Cup final against Chelsea in 2002) – and often big goals too – and we all loved him. Merino feels like that kind of guy who can always be relied upon, and if we win trophies this season, he will absolutely have earned his medals. Mikel Merino has made 33 appearances, scored six goals, and made three assists. He’s a vital cog in Mikel Arteta’s squad, and the manager will be frustrated at yet another injury for us, just when the full bill of health was there for him. There have even been calls to get him playing up top with our other forwards misfiring, such is the value that we, as Arsenal fans, have all started to realise he has. He’s a difficult one to read because he doesn’t fit into a specific ‘style’ (traditional striker, duel-winner, technical passer, etc) but instead kind of does a little bit of everything well. He even filled in at six recently, so you can tell why Arteta absolutely loves him – he’s a ‘plug-and-play’ footballer.
Speedy recovery, Mikel.
The other question we’ll be waiting on – which I’d imagine we’ll find out today when Mikel has his press conference ahead of tomorrow night’s League Cup Semi Final- is the fitness of Bukayo Saka. Arteta described it as a ‘[little niggle](https://onefootball.com/en/news/mikel-arteta-provides-bukayo-saka-injury-update-after-arsenas-win-over-leeds-united-42342365)‘ after the game, and I would hope that ifthat’s still the case, we resist the temptation to play him tomorrow night. He’s not a player – despite his lack of goals of late – who we can afford to have out for too long. Madueke was good on Saturday, it’s great that he has been credited with his goal from a corner, but we’ve all seen his lack of consistency and so I just worry that whilst he will be good over short bursts of matches, to rely on him for any prolonged period of time might cause us issues.
Martinelli could be an option on the right too and he did well with the assist for Big Vik’s goal on Saturday. But he’s flattered to deceive over previous attempts on the right so, again, I’m not sure it’s a viable solution. Hopefully, they were just taking precautions for Saka and he’s good for at least Sunderland next weekend. We need him.
I’ll leave it there for today. I’m on holiday in the Maldives for this week, so I’m going to get out to that beach and cook myself for a bit. Have yourselves a good one, whatever you’re doing, guys and gals.